Journeying through in-between times and spaces: commuter students’ everyday practices of and strategies for university access and engagement.

Abstract

This chapter attends to the everyday journeying through ‘in-between’ times and spaces of university commuter students. While the extant literature has considered the experiences and impact of being a commuter student, less attention has been paid to the actual processes of journeying. Here, prompted by a discussion of the context that informs the commute, we focus on the embodied and affective experiences of regular journeying between home and university, and the impact of this on university access and engagement. The chapter draws on a survey with 117 commuter and 98 non-commuter students, in-depth interviews with ten commuter students and two completed journey photo diaries, and is mediated by the local geography of a London-based campus university. Recognising journeying as an important spatial-temporal frame of analysis, we highlight how it is marked by students’ assertions of agency and socio-economic position, which shape practices of, and strategies for, university access and engagement.